Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
WebMCP – a much needed way to make agents play with rather than against the web
A bookmarks post that closes all the tabs
I am deeply frustrated with my inability to stick to the plan and do this post once a month. But I will really make an effort from now on because the more I delay the more links (and tabs) pile on and I end up not being able to share everything.
Bookmarks related to tech and web development
- Webmentions by Joe Crawford.
- Selfish reasons for building accessible UIs by Nolan Lawson.
- Radical Web.
- Bot or not? by Oleh.
- Charity Digital Skills.
- Being lazy with view-transition-old and -new by Cyd Stumpel.
- Url Town.
- Better CSS layouts: Time.com Hero Section by Ahmad Shadeed.
- Sceptical about website carbon emission figures by Fershad Irani.
- zine - personal websites and the law by Ava.
- Responsive Nav by Ariel Salminen.
- This website has no class by Adam Stoddard.
- Taking a shot at the double focus ring problem using modern CSS by Eric Bailey.
- Build for the Web, Build on the Web, Build with the Web by Harry Roberts.
- You no longer need JavaScript by Lyra.
- How To Argue With An AI Booster by Edward Zitron.
- Creating proportional, equal-height image rows with CSS, 11ty, and Nunjucks by Jeremy Robert Jones.
- Making sense of accessibility and the law by Martin Underhill.
- An Interactive Guide to SVG Paths by Josh Comeau.
- Still being a woman in tech by Melanie Crissey.
- Github Action that automatically compresses JPEGs, PNGs, WebPs & AVIFs in Pull Requests. by calibreapp.
- Generative AI: What You Need To Know by Baldur Bjarnason.
- Writing Code Was Never The Bottleneck by Pedro Tavares.
- Hack to the Future - Frontend by Matt Hobbs.
- Secret Web by Benjamin Hollon.
- JavaScript dos and donts by Mu-An Chiou.
- A pragmatic guide to modern CSS colours - part one by Kevin Powell.
- Opt Out Project by Janet Vertesi.
- My first months in cyberspace by Phil Gyford.
- Could Open Graph Just Be a CSS Media Type? by Scott Jehl.
- Top layer troubles: popover vs. dialog by Stephanie Eckles.
- Web Platform Status.
- Don't start testing accessibility with a screen reader by Erik Kroes.
- Not so short note on aria-label usage – Big Table Edition by stevef.
- HMRC's Virtual Empathy Hub.
- Dark Patterns Detective.
- Come to the light-dark() Side by Sara Joy.
- CSS light-dark() by Mayank.
- More options for styling details by Bramus.
- Preserving the Pixel Art Look in Web Content by kirupa.
- What is it like to use a screen reader on an inaccessible website? by Craig Abbott.
- Browser logos.
- Please stop externalizing your costs directly into my face by Drew DeVault.
- The case for “old school” CSS by Chen Hui Jing.
- The rise of Whatever by Eevee.
- What I Wish Someone Told Me When I Was Getting Into ARIA by Eric Bailey.
- the web as a space to be explored by Roy Tang.
- How to (not) use aria-label, -labelledby and -describedby by Steve Frenzel.
- Cally by Nick Williams.
- Five ways cookie consent managers hurt web performance (and how to fix them) by Cliff Crocker.
- Get out of my head.
- no web without women by Selman.
- Bringing Joy Back to the Web: Fediverse vs. Centralized Apps by Richard MacManus.
- Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing.
- How to Surf the Web in 2025, and Why You Should by David Cain.
- The 'Accessibility' link is a Lie: My Adventures in Weaponizing Corporate Virtue Signaling by Robert Kingett.
- US dad takes photos of his naked toddler for the doctor, Google flags him as criminal
- Webring List.
- Pattern Craft.
- Simplified Accessibility Testing.
- A guide to creating accessible PDFs using free tools by Steve Frenzel.
- Zero to internet: your first website
- The Web you want
- Fixing Baselines by Roma Komarov.
- Why RSS matters by Ben Werdmuller.
Other bookmarks
- Productivity traps I fall into regularly by Dave Rupert.
- All the jobs I failed to get by Terence Eden.
- Clara's blogroll by Clara.
- Shamelessness as a strategy by Nadia Asparouhova.
- Everything I Know about Self-Publishing by Kevin Kelly.
- reasons to blog by chia amisola.
- Publishing personal content online while hiding yourself is a flawed but rational response to a broken internet by TDP.
- little directory of calm
- Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life With Pasta by Sarah Grey.
- 47 lessons by Ben Werdmuller.
- HTML Zine.
- Just a QR Code.
- Monastery of Sankt Blamensir via Maya.
- Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities by Rachele Dini.
- England football team Nazi salute.
- vegan and vegetarian restaurants, ice cream parlors, cafés etc. registered in OpenStreetMap.
- Dicing an onion the Mathematically Optimal Way by Andrew Aquino with Russell Samora and Jan Diehm.
- The "washerwoman" folklore motif in Europe and North America.
- On keeping up with friends and contacts by joelchrono.
Refactoring English: Month 14
New here?
Hi, I’m Michael. I’m a software developer and founder of small, indie tech businesses. I’m currently working on a book called Refactoring English: Effective Writing for Software Developers.
Every month, I publish a retrospective like this one to share how things are going with my book and my professional life overall.
Highlights
- A new strategy for finding book readers is having positive results.
- I had a breakthrough experience by letting an AI agent run in unrestricted mode.
- I’ve been using AI to correct decisions I regret about my tech stack.
Goal grades
At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:
Eversource EV Rebate Program Exposed Massachusetts Customer Data
I recently claimed a rebate for installing an electric vehicle (EV) charger, only to discover that Eversource, my power supplier, was publicly exposing personal information of customers who applied, including:
- Full names
- Vehicle registration certificates (including plate number and vehicle identification number)
- Home addresses
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
I’ll include the backstory that led me to the vulnerability, but if you just want to know about the security vulnerability, you can skip to that.
My Eighth Year as a Bootstrapped Founder
Eight years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. Every year, I post an update about how that’s going and what my life is like as an indie founder.
Previously on…
I don’t expect you to go back and read my last seven updates. Here’s all you need to know:
- 2018 - 2020 - Quit my job and created several unprofitable businesses.
- 2020 - 2024 - Created a product called TinyPilot that let people control their computers remotely.
- 2024 - Sold TinyPilot, became a father.
How finances went
People are always most interested in how money works as an indie founder, so I’ll start there. Here’s what my revenue and profit looked like every month this year.